


time doesn't matter

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [77]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 20:31:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12540580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: Imagine how Jamie and Claire would have spent a quiet day at the printshop together, the day after reuniting.





	time doesn't matter

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/166881687936/imagine-claire-tells-jamie-that-she-and-frank) on tumblr

“All right,” Claire huffed. “I see your point. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

Her heart jolted at the simple, beautiful sound of Jamie’s laugh.

“Allow me.” Gently he placed his hands over hers on the lever of the printing press, pulling it all the way back with practiced ease.

And couldn’t help but kiss the shell of her ear, level with his nose.

Quickly she turned to face him, eyes bright with so much joy.

“At this rate you’ll never get that order done,” she teased, voice low.

He swallowed, framing her face with his hands, thumbs tracing over the impossibly graceful arches of her eyebrows. Eyes locked on hers as he – and then she – leaned in for a long, slow kiss.

–

“I can’t believe he actually said that to you.” Claire gingerly lifted a drying sheet from the line strung across the top floor of the printshop, squinting in the afternoon sunlight.

Somewhere down below, Jamie huffed. “The man is worse than the most uptight soldier I ever met in the British army. Wants to keep himself pure, he says – even to the brink of madness.”

She set the sheet back on the line and examined the next one. “I don’t suppose it ever crossed your mind to let him know that you spend most of your nights in a brothel, then?”

“I confess it wasna something I ever planned to bring up in polite conversation.” A soft, damp, smoky smell wafted up from the shop floor. “Though he did say that since he *had* gone *so far* out of his way to get the ash, he may as well give it to me. Immoral Papist that I am.”

“I can take a look at the goiter, you know. Recommend he eats more foods rich in iodine – that would shrink it, and if it doesn’t then I can even attempt a small surgery. Though – ”

“*Ifrinn!*”

She peered over the catwalk to see Jamie – Jamie! – spectacles perched at the edge of his nose, hands black with fresh ink, back hunched in pain.

“Jamie?!” Quickly she darted down the creaky wooden steps, just in time to brace him as a fresh spasm coursed through his body.

“S’all – right – Sassenach,” he grimaced, teeth clenched, chest heaving. “Chair – get me a – chair…”

Claire scrambled to drag a high-backed wooden chair from the corner toward the working table, and watched Jamie gratefully sink into it with a soft thud.

Hoisting her skirts out of the way, she knelt in front of him, two hands flat on the rough work apron tied around his chest, holding him steady.

“Breathe with me, Jamie.” She looked up to meet his eyes – creased almost into slits – until she knew he was watching. “In – there’s a good lad – and out. In – yes – and out. Calm down. In – hold – and out.”

The long column of his throat swallowed, and he flailed his ink-stained hands, not willing to soil her clothes.

“That’s right – there. Just there.”

Blissfully he closed his eyes, finally able to straighten his back. Breathing deep.

“Claire?” he rasped.

“Don’t scare me like that. I can help you with your back – ”

“Claire,” he repeated with a sigh. “Can ye please get me one of the rags in the bucket over in the corner? I need to clean my hands, and then I want to hold ye. Can ye do that?”

She swallowed and rose, kissing his clammy brow.

–

“Did you print those books yourself?”

Jamie chewed on the oatcake and looked over his shoulder, following Claire’s gaze to the small pile of volumes on his bookshelf, resting his free hand on her knee.

“I dinna print books like that just yet. Pamphlets, broadsheets, handbills I can do. Books are a whole other matter – I’d have to employ a binder. And that’s a headache I can afford to not have. For now.”

He turned back to face Claire – Claire! – smudges of ink still darkening the bonny skin of her shoulders. Christ, in this light he could see the marks he’d left on her neck the night before – and likely just added to significantly over the past half hour. Still, it was such a bonnie sight…

“So – pieces from your personal collection, then?”

“Just a few of my favorites. St. Augustine. Cicero. Montaigne.”

She smiled around her bite of cheese. “Of course. Light reading for just before bed.”

He set the half-empty tray down on the floor, drawing closer on the narrow mattress. Voice low, full of promise.

“The philosophers kept me company until I fell asleep. But now…”

His free hand reached out to tangle in her mad, wild curls.

How many times had he longed for – lusted for – the simple ability to just touch her?

“Now I dinna think I’ll ever read the philosophy or theology before bed again. Not now that I have much more…*pleasant* alternatives, Sassenach.”

She leaned forward, meeting his mouth with her own flurry of tiny kisses.

“Pleasant, is it?” she breathed, palms flat against his chest.

He reached forward – hungry – but she drew back, smiling, pushing him down to the mattress.

“Holy God,” he whispered, arms drifting downward to grip her hips.

–

“It’s no’ as comfortable as the bed last night, Sassenach, but I canna say I’ve any right to complain.”

Sprawled atop him, her entire length melting into his, arms locked around her sides to prevent her from crashing to the ground, she huffed against his shoulder.

“I’ve slept in a small bed like this for the past eighteen years, Jamie. I’ve plenty of practice.”

As much as was possible, he drew away to look into her eyes properly.

“Did…” His voice rumbled against her cheek, throat unexpectedly closing. Shy.

The pads of her fingers gently traced the angular shapes of his shoulders.

“Did…did Frank no’ give ye a proper bed to sleep in, then? I – I thought that wi’ him being a professor, and you being a doctor, you would have been fine wi’ money…”

He felt her flush scarlet against him.

“Damn it, I’m sorry, Claire,” he babbled, grip tightening. “I have no right to ask – ”

“We slept in separate beds, Jamie.” Her voice was far away – lost. Ashamed.

All the breath left his body.

“Christ,” he whispered. “Oh, *mo chridhe.* I’m sorry.”

Idly she ran her fingers through the hairs on his chest. “I tried to make it work until Brianna was about two. But every time I…I tried…” She sighed. “I saw you. I – I couldn’t…”

If he had clenched his jaw any tighter it would have broken through his skin.

“That will *never* be us, *mo nighean donn*,” he vowed, gently guiding her chin upward to meet his eyes. “Never.”

She smiled – though it didn’t reach her eyes – and kissed his chest.

“That’s in the past. I’m here with you, now.”

“That ye are.” He frowned – overcome with the most stunning realization.

“So – until…until ye came back to me, ye hadna lain wi’ a man in…in eighteen years?”

Her silence was all the answer he needed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She curled her ankles around his shins, hand slowly tracing a path toward his groin. “I’m not. It made me ready for you.”

She bit his chin, then his lower lip, then –

“J’hallucine!”

Jamie – limbs locked with Claire – rolled straight off the cot and onto the cold floor with a thud. He pushed Claire to the ground – crawled on top of her to protect her – and dug around in his pile of clothes for the wee knife that had come in handy more than once since he had settled in Edinburgh.

“Milord – ”

“What the devil, Fergus!” Jamie seethed, trying to push Claire behind him now, not caring about his own nakedness. “Can ye no’ see I’m busy?”

“You know what *les jeunes filles* always say, milord?” She didn’t need to see his face to know that a wide grin had formed. “That a man is happiest when he lets the woman take charge?”

“Thank you, Fergus.” Claire’s voice, muffled by Jamie’s arm and what was likely his trousers, held just the right mix of exasperation and love for this man who was the boy she had loved – mothered – so many lifetimes ago. “And a woman is happiest when she doesn’t allow her man to have such daft sleeping arrangements.”


End file.
